The next time you travel in the air or near coastal waters, you can thank the professionals in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Coast Guard for helping ensure your safety. Every single day, FAA employees review aircraft and component designs to ensure their airworthiness; air traffic controllers guide our aircraft through the skies; and hazardous materials inspectors ensure that cargo placed on those aircraft are not endangering passenger safety. Likewise, the U. S. Coast Guard protects us when we purchase a recreational boat or travel on a cruise ship. The service is on the scene when an oil spill or marine accident puts coastal lands and properties at risk. They interdict cargoes of illicit drugs headed toward the United States. And their aircraft and surface ships pluck us from the waters, often at great risk to their aircrews, when disaster strikes.

Easing the sequestor’s near-term effects under the congressional budget deal reached in late December was welcome news for our industry providing a measure of relief for important federal national security, civil aviation and space functions. But although we won’t be facing the full brunt of sequestration’s worst two years—or another government shutdown for the foreseeable future—defense spending will still be $30 billion below the President’s budget request for the year, and funding for FAA, NASA and NOAA will still be on the downward arc that began in 2010. That said, the deal represents a first step toward a long-term agreement that could eliminate sequestration altogether, reverse the current “investment deficit” in programs that make our nation strong and secure, and finally address the mandatory spending accounts that are the real drivers of our nation’s debt and deficit problems.

The Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors has elected Michael T. Strianese, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of L-3 Communications, as its Chairman for 2014. Strianese will begin his term Jan. 1, succeeding Wes Bush, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Northrop Grumman Corporation. David L. Joyce, President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Aviation, was elected AIA’s Vice Chairman.